A collection of short stories by Chuck Palahniuk. Those of you on MSN might see my current screen name and wonder what it means and/or why I have it (it being "Mnye etoh nadoh kahk zoobee v zadnetze"). To answer that, I'll post the following extract from Guts :-
"Emergancy paramedics will tell you that every year about 150 people get stuck this way, sucked by a circulation pump. Get your long hair caught, or your ass, and you're going to drown. Every year, tons of peopledo. Most of them in Florida.
People just don't talk about it. Not even French people talk about everything.
Getting one knee up, getting one foot under me, I get to half-standing when I feel the tug against my butt. Getting my other foot under me, I kick off against the bottom. I'm kicking free, not touching the concrete, but not getting to the air, either.
Still kicking water, thrashing with both arms, I'm maybe halfway to the surface but not going any higher. The heartbeat inside my head getting loud and fast.
The bright sparks of light crossing and criss-crossing my eyes, I turn and look back, but it doesn't make sense. This thick rope, some kind of snake, blue-white and braided with veins, has come up out of the pool drain and it's holding on to my butt. Some of the veins are leaking blood, red blood that looks black underwater and drifts away from little rips in the pale skin of the snake. The blood trails away, disappearing in the water, and inside the snake's thin, blue-white skin, you can see lumps of some half-digested meal."
...
"Knotted inside the snake, you can see corn and peanuts. You can see a long bright orange ball. It's the kind of horse-pill vitamin my dad makes me take, to help put on weight. To get a football scholarship. With extra iron iron and omega three fatty acids.
It's seeing that vitamin pill thast saves my life.
It's not a snake. It's my large intestine, my colon pulled out of me. What doctors call, prolapsed. It's my guts sucked into the drain."
...
"That big brother in the Navy, he taught us one other good phrase. A Russian phrase. The way we say: "I need that like I need a hole in my head." Russians people say "I need that like I need teeth in my asshole."
Mnye etoh nadoh kahk zoobee v zadnetze.
Those stories about how animals caught in a trap will chew off their leg, well, any coyote would tell you a couple of bites beats the hell out of being dead.
Hell, even if you're Russian, some day you just might want those teeth.
Otherwise, what you might have to do is - you have to twist around. You hook one elbow behind your knee and pull that leg up into your face. You bite and snap at your own ass. You run out of air, and you will chew through anything to get that next breath."
What's the point of a hero with no one to save?
Le sigh
